Another Fascinating GUD Discovery

By Phil Hecken, on June 14th, 2014

By Phil Hecken

As most of you (especially weekend readers) are aware, the Gridiron Uniform Database (or GUD, for short), the brainchild of Tim Brulia, Bil Schaefer and later, Rob Holecko, has for the past three years been documenting, via historical research, the uniforms worn by professional football teams across America. It’s been an amazing project — truly a labor of love, but also one of great historical import. The site also (this past Thursday) celebrated its third anniversary. Today, I’m pleased to bring yet another important (and perhaps, to fans of the Chicago Bears, life-altering) discovery by the historians of the GUD.

So, without further ado, an introduction from Rob, and then the good stuff, from Bill:

.. .. .. ..

As mentioned earlier, Thursday was the third anniversary of the launching of the Gridiron Uniform Database. You can read all about the material that we have gradually added to the site over the past 36 months here in our blog.

Today, however, Bill Schaefer is going to tell us about a new recent discovery. Bill, as our resident Chicago Bears fan, routinely bleeds navy and orange on many an autumn Sunday. He was there when both Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan were triumphantly carried off as Super Bowl winning coaches in 1986, he gritted his teeth with every Rex Grossman turnover in Super Bowl XLI, and he continues to watch every Jay Cutler pass with trepidation to this day. — Rob Holecko

Have The Bears Not Always Worn Blue and Orange?by Bill Schaefer

Many of you, I’m sure, have seen at least parts of the collection of Merv Corning’s artwork similar to the George Halas image, and others, above. Mr. Corning was commissioned by the NFL to create the images for the book “The First 50 Years” in 1969. Similar drawings of Ernie Nevers in his Duluth Eskimos uniform and Bronko Nagurski in a psychedelic 1936 Bears uniform have been carved into our collective football souls.

But never, never, never, did I believe for a single second that, if by chance one of these famous drawings could be incorrect, it would happen to be the above drawing of “Papa Bear” George Stanley Halas. Recent evidence has turned up that this uniform, very likely, was not worn until the following year (1921), when the Bears Staleys moved to Chicago.

This marks the second time in the last few years that we at the GUD, along with the help of our loyal viewers and contributors, have discovered an erroneous, long-standing misconception of a very early League franchise. If you remember back to October, 2012, our own Tim Brulia penned an article posted on Uni Watch explaining how, despite the claims of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the ‘bumblebee’ uniform that was made into a throwback jersey that the Steelers have worn the past two seasons and attributed to the 1934 season, had, in fact, only been worn in 1933 (along with the equally detestable ‘City Seal’ jersey).

As THE Bears fan residing in GUD, it pains me to say that it is extremely, 100% likely that the Chicago Bears organization has NOT always worn navy and orange. “Sacrilege,” you say? I couldn’t agree more. Up is down. Black is white. Cats and dogs getting along. We’re talking the seventh sign of the apocalypse here!

How could this happen? All football fans with a shred of League historical knowledge know how George Halas, a University of Illinois alum, purchased the Decatur Staleys and remade them in the image of his alma mater donning the navy and orange that the Bears have worn for almost 100 years. What we have discovered, with the help of a contributor, identified as “LJP,” that no fewer than 6 different articles from the 1920 Decatur Review refer to the Staleys as wearing red (or crimson) jerseys.

Two possibilities exist. The first option is that the reporter for the Decatur Review was color blind and his editor didn’t notice any of these ‘errors.’ The second option, and dare I say the more likely of the two, is that the Staleys actually wore red. In hindsight, I guess we should have seen this coming. After all, since the story goes that he remade the team in the image of the University of Illinois, the Staleys HAD to have been in something else besides navy and orange to necessitate that subsequent change in the first place.

While we don’t have enough to substantiate the reason for this discrepancy in the history of the Bears’ organization, enough is known that we can assemble a viable postulate for the circumstances surrounding what likely happened over 90 years ago.

In 1920, George Halas moves to Decatur, Illinois, to take a position with the A.E. Staley Company, a starch manufacturer. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Staley Co. bore red in its logo and the team was supplied with red jerseys. The team takes a financial loss in 1920 despite superior play and Halas buys the team in order to move them to the big city, Chicago. There is a suspicion that a condition of the sale, likely an advertising ploy, is that Halas must retain the team nickname of “Staleys” for one year after moving to Chicago. This would explain the single year of operating as the “Chicago Staleys” in 1921. However, Chicago already boasts a professional football team, the Cardinals, who wear…you guessed it…red jerseys (technically maroon but definitely in the same ‘ballpark’). That year Halas refurbishes the team in the navy and orange image of his beloved alma mater, the University of Illinois, in order to appeal to local fans and eliminate any chance for confusion with the Cardinals. With the conditions of his purchase satisfied, in 1922, Halas renames his team the “Bears” because football players are larger than the baseball-playing denizens his team will be sharing Wrigley Field with, the Cubs, thus creating a timeless link between the two franchises.

There is even a distinct possibility, though unsubstantiated at this point, that the Staleys continued to wear red jerseys early on in the 1921 season before eventually changing colors at some time in midseason but that remains unconfirmed at this point.

We have six references from the Decatur Review that describe the Staleys as having worn red. (Note: These are reproduced in the GUD Blog Article.)

Because of this preponderance of evidence, we are changing the image for the 1920 Decatur Staleys to a crimson/red version of their jerseys, assuming that the general design was correct and the colors, only, were incorrect. We are, however, holding off on changing the 1921 image to include additional red combinations until such a time as evidence is produced proving that they were, indeed, worn after 1920.

Hopefully, my fellow Bears fans can come to grips with this as I have.

.. .. .. ..

Thanks Bill (and Rob & Tim). Great stuff, as always! Congratulations on your third anniversary, and here’s to many, many more!

Phils & Cubs Go Back 50 Years

Last night, the Phillies and Cubs threw back to 1964. I’m not 100% certain why this year was chosen (since the Phils chose it), because those Phillies suffered one of the most famous collapses in history. They were so close to winning the NL, in fact, that they even had World Series tickets printed and sold:

Now, on Fathers’ Day in 1964, at Shea Stadium, Jim Bunning had a pretty good outing. In fact, he tossed a perfect game, which was (and still is) one of the rarest feats in baseball. And the Phillies will wear last night’s throwbacks again on Sunday, which is Father’s Day — and almost the 50th anniversary of that feat. But he tossed it on the road, so the 1964 throwbacks worn last night would be different from those Bunning tossed his no-no in.

The Cubs were outfitted in 1964 throwbacks as well. Lets see how they did.

On the left, above, is the 1964 uniform, and on the right is the throwback. Looks like they got that part pretty correct.

How about the Cubs?

From the front, the Cubs throwbacks seemed pretty spot-on as well.

Here’s some more shots of both teams.

Ok, aside from most of the players wearing the uniforms in 2014 style, extra baggy and with shoe-length pants, it looked pretty good. How’d they look together?

Also, according to Dan Fuller (who provided this screenshot below), the Phils engaged in a simple decal swap on the helmets — the blue button (it was a white button in 1964) decal was still there:

Pretty sloppy, if you ask me. The button decal is a minor, but still important detail, but the HUGE numbers were one of the hallmarks of the uniform worn back then. It almost seemed as if they took the current uniform template (which is very similar anyway) and simply took the names off the back, but added standard block numbers (they wear a rounded font now).

I didn’t really spot anything wrong with the Cubs roadies — they seemed to be OK. In 1964, the Cubs had rounded numbers — I didn’t see the game and didn’t see any full back shots, but it seemed the numbers were rounded, a la 1964:

As I mentioned above, the Phillies will wear these uniforms again on Sunday, as they celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Bunning’s no hitter, but the Cubs will wear their regular uniforms.

If any Phillies or Cubs fans saw this game and have any observations I may have missed, please let us know in the comments.

Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

Back today with a pair from our colorizer-extraordinaire George Chilvers, who as always, has turned in phenomenal work. Click on any image to enlarge.

Here’s George:

. . .

Hi Phil—

A bit late for this week probably:

“OK guys – the votes have been counted for what colors we should wear….”

Thanks George. Great colorizations, as always. OK, colorizers — love for you guys to have your latest work featured on here. Keep ’em coming!

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

~~~

First up today is Josh Escobar, who has a great idea for an NFL throwback game:

Hey Phil,

It’s Josh Escobar. Got another uniform concept for you. I miss the thanksgiving classic when throwbacks were worn and I love when the NHL does it’s winter classic. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the NFL do the same but with league rivalries. I know it’ll never happen but I can dream. Here I got one of the oldest rivalries, the Acme Packers with faux leather helmet with brown face mask & the stripe-heavy Bears throwback.

Josh Escobar

. . .

Next up is Danny Garrison who thought the UWMNT away unis could use a tweak:

Hey Phil,

Don’t know what earthly use you have for this, but flipping the red and blue makes the kit so much better.

-Danny

. . .

And we close today with Alan Filipczak who has a concept for the Ohio Pilots, NHL team:

Phil,

I’ve attached a concept for rebranding the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets into the Ohio Pilots. If you’d like to use it for Uni-Watch, feel free to either link to the PDF or copy/paste text and images from the attached Word doc directly to the blog. I could also email along jpg images, but there will be a loss of resolution.

Thanks,

Al

. . .

And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

U.W.F.F.L. Spring League

UWFFL Spring 2014 – Week 14by Rob Holecko

The UWFFL Spring Developmental league was feeling a little under the weather last week and took a sick day. (It had a nasty post-nasal drip, just didn’t want to get out of the bed. I’m sure you all know that feeling.)

At any rate, Week 13’s games will be made up at a later date, but today we are back with another full slate of competition as we move on to our Week 14 schedule.

Two big games headline our action this week. The only two undefeated teams remaining in the same division face off as the 6-0 Wichita Arrows meet the 6-0 Indiana Lynx. The winner of this game will clinch first place in Group D and be headed to Division II, as they will hold a one-game lead with the tiebreaker, with only one game remaining. NFL-inspired throwbacks are on tap in Greenville, SC as the 4-2 Jacksonville Rhinos take on the 6-0 Greenville Pointers.

Greenville can clinch the Group B Championship with a win and also assure themselves of a Division II berth, while Jacksonville is also fighting for placement in a tough Group B. Greenville is wearing throwbacks inspired by the NFL 1933 Brooklyn Dodgers, it has an olde-English style “G” on the upper left, and uniform number on the upper right. One departure from the Dodgers, it has five torso “grip-strips” instead of the four the Dodgers feature. The Rhinos, meanwhile, are wearing uniforms that pay tribute to the 1995 Jacksonville Jaguars expansion team.

Added: This just in – it seems there were last minute
discrepancies with some voting tabulations from some of Week 12’s
games. We had an irregular amount of votes come in from some Canadian
Providences after voting ended in a few of those games. While we have
no evidence that any of the Week 12 results were intentionally
tampered with and any outcomes changed, we are surprised to see now
that both Indiana and Wichita, as it turns out, actually lost their
Week 12 games. So neither of those two teams are undefeated at 6-0 as
indicated above, but are both at 5-1 and now in a 3-way tie for first
place in Group D with Toledo.

Good luck to both teams this week!

Uni Watch News Ticker:

Baseball News: Can you say color palette special? That’s what the Astros and Rays will wear in a faux/throwback game on June 21st in St. Pete (the Rays are now marking their third year for whipping out those “if the Rays existed in 1978″ unis). … Just beat it! The Gary Southshore Railcats will be wearing jerseys that pay tribute to Michael Jackson on June 21st (thanks, Paul). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: “Point of observation on the DC Baseball History FB page this morning: the similarities between this photo of Don Newcombe and the expansion AL Senators logo. Discuss.” … According to this press release, the reason the Pirates and Cubs wore camo on Tuesday was to raise $50K for three charities (thanks to David Gadd). … Speaking of camo unis, here’s some info on the Reds camo, which was worn Wednesday night. … Paul’s discussion on the Reds evolving wishbone-C logo prompted Kyle Shaner to send a photo of his collection. “The logos on my Reds caps from throughout the years seem to be more open than the current on the field version,” he notes. … This is a pretty bizarre giveaway. The Cards are giving out Jon Hamm bobbleheads on August 18th. Says submitter Scott Davis, “I’ve never heard of a team giving out a bobblehead of a fan before.” … Interesting research from Chris Creamer: The Montreal Expos never wore Canadian flag on uniform, but they did wear the US flag 28 times. … Also from Chris, some teams won’t look terrible in the S&S caps, but some will. Too bad the Yankees couldn’t tell MLB to eff-off with this stupid promotion, but I guess they need to sell caps too. … Check out UC-Irvine’s new jerseys for its College World Series appearance (h/t @gacanefanblog). … Last night the Braves wore their flag desecration jerseys regular home cap (was this a first? They had worn them before with the ‘tomahawk’ cap). … Barry Bonds was famous for (among other things), wearing really long pants as a MLBer. But, he rocked ribbon stirrups during his ASU days (h/T Sully).

NFL News: Yesterday was, of course, Friday the 13th, so the New York Giants wanted to show off 13 scary facemasks (thanks, Paul). Not sure what Friday the 13th has to do with scary things (isn’t that Hallowe’en?), but whatever. … A new Dockers advertising campaign stars Sarah Harbaugh lamenting the fashion crisis facing her husband, San Francisco 49ers football coach Jim Harbaugh (from Tommy Turner). … Tris Wykes was watching an NFL Films piece on the 1970s called The Me Generation. “They just said RB Mike Adamle, who wore No. 1 for the Jets and Chiefs, was the last NFL RB to be allowed to wear a number under 20.”

Grab Bag: The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation is holding a sock design contest for former president Bush’s 90th birthday (nice find by Kyle Tarbet). Kyle adds, “He is know for wearing colorful sock designs.” … Since Comcast owns New York City’s famous 30 Rockefeller Plaza, it wants to place its logo atop 30 Rock (thanks, Brinke). … “Just wanted to drop you a line about a St. Louis local story,” writes Bill Garbe. “The long and short of it is Parkway School district is partnering with a local marketing company to license the schools’ logos for apparel and other doodads. One problem: All three parkway schools use logos that are direct ripoffs of NFL/collegiate logos.” … Coleman Mullins found this Iowa State University tie clip at an antique shop. “Not sure it’s all that old but it’s neat either way,” he says. … Ryan Patrick sends in this NCAA Championships link, and he notes, “by scrolling down you can see which sports apparently have custom logos and which don’t.”

Whew! That’s quite the post for today. Thanks to Bill, Tim and Rob, George, the concepters, and Rob again. Helluva Stanley Cup Final (if you missed it, the Kings defeated the Rangers in another Double-OT, winning the series four games to one). Now that one silver/black/white team has won a title, perhaps the other can also wrap it up at home tomorrow night. Go Spurs Go!

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I’ll have a very special (now annual) Father’s Day at Uni Watch piece. You won’t want to miss it.

“I consider the relentless celebration of the military over and over and over and over and over and over again, to the near-exclusion of all other sectors of society, and the conflation of patriotism with militarism, to be very bad indeed.”
–Paul Lukas

That Astros/Rays game is going to be the best looking game of the season.

Jeremiah|
June 14, 2014 at 11:11 am |

I would agree. I love that the Rays are bringing out that uniform. It’s way better their usual duds.

Jim Vilk|
June 14, 2014 at 10:29 pm |

Top Five Best! Looking! Game! Ever!

BurghFan|
June 14, 2014 at 8:01 am |

“…along with the equally detestable ‘City Seal’ jersey”

I’ve read that players didn’t like the heavy crest on the front of the jersey, but no football jersey represents its city like that one.

As far as the Bears’ red jerseys go, don’t overthink it too much. It may have been as simple as the sporting goods vendor they used having a set of red jerseys available.

Gusto4044|
June 14, 2014 at 11:02 am |

Yes, I’ve never heard any complaints with the design of the city seal, the issue was the vertical striping on the jersey(which a popular design back when those jerseys were originally worn).

David Murphy|
June 14, 2014 at 8:01 am |

Last night was the second of only five planned times the Braves wore their red jerseys. Like last night they wore their regular home cap. The old tomahawk A cap appears to be a thing of the past. For that I am grateful. As I’ve said in the past, I’m wondering if the Braves are slowing trying to phase out the tomahawk logo by the time they move to thier new stadium.

MJ|
June 14, 2014 at 8:04 am |

I was at the game.
I will take everything Gary said and go one step further: EVERY number was wrong. The serifs are glaring. But the 2 should have a diagonal bar, not a horizontal one. The 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 0 should have been more octagonal, with longer diagonal strokes between the horizontal and vertical strokes.
Majestic didn’t even half-ass this. Maybe a one-third-ass. They ought to let Mitchell & Ness do these and do them right.

Mark in Shiga|
June 14, 2014 at 8:45 am |

“One-third-ass” is just about right.

That having been said, the Cubs looked just fine (though to my eyes the CHICAGO was a bit small). That’s a timeless look for them and, if the road uniforms have to be gray, I would love to see the next iteration of road uniforms looking exactly like that. City name, number on the back, and bear patch. You don’t need any more.

Jim Y.|
June 14, 2014 at 11:04 am |

I am not 100% sure about this, but due to the symmetrical nature of an ass, I don’t believe it is possible to one-third ass something. You can half-ass something or one quarter-ass, or even one-eighth ass something. But it is physically impossible to one-third ass something.

The Phillies used a two that was a different typeface than the other numerals. It was sort of like a Wilson varsity style (rectangular counters) while the other numerals looked like what you would find on a cheaply made replica jersey (octagonal counters.) Just awful.

CWac19|
June 14, 2014 at 8:38 am |

Why would the Phillies “throw back” to a uniform so similar to their present duds? Seems kind of like the Yankees “throwing back” to 1964.

It’s like Majestic thinks every player is a 6’5″ 250-pound size-52-wearing behemoth with an extra-baggy jersey. Guys like Samuel (and Jimmy Rollins) who at 5’11” are not exactly dwarves, practically have to pull their jerseys out of their pants just to avoid having the bottom ot the number stuck in there, while there’s a huge expanse of empty white space above the number.

There’s no specific regulation for the World Cup about the boots, it’s sort of a FIFA Laws of the Game regulation.

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 10:12 am |

It’s like the shirt tuck. It’s in the books, but clearly, no one cares any more.

dakotafrost|
June 14, 2014 at 9:37 am |

I echo the sentiments of everyone regarding the 1964 Phillies throwbacks. I was at the game last night and even with the inaccuracies, I loved the look and wish the team would ditch the current look and revert. That light blue color for the stars and buttons never worked, IMO. The Phillies should have white buttons on their caps all of the time!

I noticed the small numbers, the low placement of the numbers, and the blue squatcee on top of the helmets. A few other observations.

– the small numbers were places low almost as if there was an expectation of placing a name on the back.

– the helmets in 1964 were those old style that had felt like flakes on them. There was no button/squatchee on top at all.

– The Phanatic did not have his name or star on his throwback jersey – it was just blank. Also, instead of replacing his cap, a 1964 throwback cap was fastened over top of his normal cap, so he had two caps on all night.

– The 1964 “P” helmet decals were all misaligned as if the person affixing them thought the spine of the “P” was meant to be straight up and down.

aingle|
June 14, 2014 at 9:57 am |

“Not sure what Friday the 13th has to do with scary things (isn’t that Hallowe’en?), but whatever”

Was anyone else watching Chile yesterday and thinking “That’s a better ‘USA’ kit than what the USMNT is be wearing”?

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 10:11 am |

Eh, looks too much like the 1998 away kit. Too many bad memories from that 3-6-1 adventure.

Clarybird|
June 14, 2014 at 10:03 am |

“Jeff Brandon “was wondering if there are any instances of logos looking backwards, such as the Philadelphia Flyers logo looking backwards in this picture. #44′s helmet decal of the P with the wings makes it look like it is flying towards his back, when #28′s P has it going towards his front. Also, with their center rink, they have it like this so when people see it they see it from left to right as if going forward.” Jeff adds, “This could fit for any team with wings, or even the Calgary Flames with their similar logo. ​Any help would be appreciated.””

Jeff Brandon – you kinda answered your own question about the Flyers logo, didn’t you? If the “P” logo on the left side of the helmet was facing forward, it would no longer be a “P”, it would be a backward “P”.

For whatever reason, the referee jersey seems to take priority over team jerseys – that was apparently the reason England won’t wear its red against Uruguay.

Ryan|
June 14, 2014 at 11:02 am |

What doesn’t make sense to me is, presuming adidas and/or Spain should have known for a while now (or at least could have inquired of FIFA) that their all-red first choice kit was considered “dark,” and obviously their 99%-black second kit was considered “dark,” then a conflict of Spain playing as the home team against any team with a dark second kit or as the away team against any team with a dark first kit would naturally arise.

Also, I suppose it wouldn’t have been legal for Spain to choose their second, thereby allowing the Dutch to wear their gorgeous orange over white first kit?

Jim Y.|
June 14, 2014 at 11:44 am |

The refs, however, wore red/black (which likely would have clashed with either team’s primary kit). I’m still new at this soccer thing, so can anyone explain why at least one nation couldn’t wear their primary?

You just answered the question in the second sentence in the first sentence. If the ref’s red/black would have clashed with either team’s primary kit, then neither team could wear their primary. (Or was that somehow a trick question, like the doctor who couldn’t operate on the patient that was brought in with his injured father because she was his mother.)

DJ|
June 14, 2014 at 1:11 pm |

The refs are wearing Adidas’s collegiate navy, not black.

Rick|
June 14, 2014 at 1:11 pm |

I think the overall problem here is that neither the Dutch nor the Spanish have a sufficiently light ‘light’ kit to contrast with another team’s dark one in all situations. But they are the countries’ traditional colors, so FIFA wouldn’t disallow them altogether.

I haven’t been able to trace this specific situation back to the official regulations, but they are a Great read if you’re into soccer kits.

Here is what I don’t understand with all of this…why does the home side have to change jerseys? If this game had taken place in Spain then Holland would of had to make the change, right?
I wonder if FIFA is taking it out on Spain because they didn’t have a “light” kit after being told each nation needed one?

Adam fritZen|
June 14, 2014 at 10:29 am |

Rangers horribly misplaced the finals patch on their blue jerseys notice in the link below it was placed in front of the seam.http://i1281.photobu...
They then changed it to on the seam. Most players had the remnants of the patch some did not.

JK|
June 14, 2014 at 10:56 am |

1964 was chosen by the Philadelphia Phillies for this weekend to commemorate the Father’s Day perfect game thrown by Jim Bunning in 1964. Senator Bunning will throw out the 1st Pitch on Sunday which will also have both teams wearing the 1964 uniform

Phil Hecken|
June 14, 2014 at 11:18 am |

“1964 was chosen by the Philadelphia Phillies for this weekend to commemorate the Father’s Day perfect game”

~~~

Yes, that was noted — but the perfecto was thrown at Shea Stadium, not Connie Mack, so they wore gray for his no-no. Not that they can’t celebrate it at home in their home ’64 unis, just that it seems slightly odd. The rest of their 1964 season wasn’t exactly memorable (or at least the last couple of weeks).

~~~

“Sunday which will also have both teams wearing the 1964 uniform”

~~~

Are you sure about that? Everything I’d heard indicates the Cubs will wear their regular unis on Sunday. This Phillies Press Release notes both teams would throwback on Friday, but only the Phillies on Sunday.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for both teams to be wearing their “1964” unis, but I was under the impression only the Phils would do so.

Dave Murphy|
June 14, 2014 at 11:26 am |

The Jon Hamm bobble heads will only be “given” to fans who buy a special ticket. Those buy VIP tickets can have their picture taken with Jon. The day before the Cardinals celebrate Jewish heritage Day, and fans buying special tickets receive a sweet cap with the StL inside the Star of David.

Alan Filipczak has come up with a great rebranding of the NHL’s Ohio club. Nice work!

Michael Bochum|
June 14, 2014 at 11:59 am |

As a Chicago Bears fan, it doesn’t upset me to find that the “Bears” (Staleys) wore something other than orange and navy. Quite the opposite actually. It excites me to be able to learn a new piece of history concerning the origins of my favorite team. I think more people should be happy about these things.

Joe|
June 14, 2014 at 12:14 pm |

The Phillies throwbacks were terrible. The script on the jersey front was thicker, so much that the open loop in the letter L looked closed. No excuse for the numbers on the back. They have never been able to correctly reproduce that number font for some reason and it should be pretty easy to do. They did play a throwback game in Houston a few years back in which the number font was better if not exact.

Also, if you notice, the seams on jerseys where the front meets the sleeves on the originals was straight diagonal downward, and last night’s was totally different, you can tell by looking the the pattern on the pinstripes.

And on throwback caps, they have never gotten the script P exactly right, it should be a bit thicker.

As for the cubs, they did a good job, except for the Chicago, was smaller and thinner, but otherwise spot on. Why can they get one team right, and not the other?

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 12:35 pm |

Random musing:

Colombia’s James Rodriguez is wearing “JAMES” as his NOB. I’m trying to think of how many non-Brazilian and non-Portuguese players are wearing something other than their surname on the back.

Besides Rodriguez, here are the ones FNOBs and NNOBs off the top of my head:

Not sure about Jackson Martinez of Colombia – he’s gone as “Jackson M.” and “Martinez”.

Also, Fabregas has gone as “CESC” before, while Alexis Sanchez, Sergio Busquets, and Wilfried Bony use FNOB and Javier Hernandez uses NNOB, but all are using last names for this World Cup.

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 12:39 pm |

Also, pronouncing “James” as “ha-mez” is something I’ll never get used to.

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 3:44 pm |

Bah, Bryan Ruiz is wearing “RUIZ B.”, the format the rest of the Costa Rica team is following.

Also, Jackson Martinez is “JACKSON M.” and Teofilo Gutierrez is “TEO” for Colombia.

Bromotrifluoromethane|
June 14, 2014 at 12:38 pm |

With the passing of Coach Noll what will the Steelers do for a memorial? My thoughts with what I’d least like to see to most like to see:

#1.) Add his initials into the sleeve striping for this season like the Bears do (which would require most players actually having full striping this season).
#2.) Incorporate the current chest logo to add a memorial banner/logo of some sort into or under it.
#3.) This will never happen but I’d love to see it. Create a memorial logo and put it on the blank side of the helmet for this season. Which my OCD would also love to see then replaced next season by the actual Steelers logo. But again I know neither of those would ever actually happen. But it would be a very nice tribute IMO to honor the passing of the greatest coach the team has had by giving him a memorial in a place the team hasn’t had a logo before.

That’s my 3 thoughts. Floor is open for all of you to fire away and tell me how dumb that may be…

DenverGregg|
June 14, 2014 at 5:23 pm |

#1 couldn’t happen because the sleeve stripes are much bigger than most current sleeves.

#2 is likely

#3 is a nifty idea.

Howzabout a #4 – initials on one of the hypocycloids.

DenverGregg|
June 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm |

Just thought of #5 – outline the hypocycloids on the helmet with black for this season only.

Thanks for the tribute to Noll at the end. Most underappreciated coach in all of sports. That’s why I like Bill Belechick (even though I otherwise hate the Patriots): his style reminds me a lot of Noll. Mike Tomlin he is not.

Chuck Noll kept himself in the background at all times. His ego was non-existent. He never felt the need to put self in front of anything. He never shilled a product, never put his name out there for other coaching offers, never took a job to be a game or studio analyst to stay in the limelight.

A statue in front of Heinz Field would have been the last thing he’d ever want. But no one deserves the honor more than he.

Pat|
June 14, 2014 at 1:05 pm |

Here is my major issue with FIFA mandating that Spain wear white. The rules state that the kits, goalkeeper kits and referee kit must all clash. All of the refs kits have Navy shorts and socks. They have 5 different colored shirts. Red, Navy, Yellow, Light Blue and Green. Netherlands was in their Navy kits with a Green goalie kit. If Spain had worn their Red kits and their primary Light Blue kits the referee could have worn their Yellow kits and it would have worked. Very questionable practices from FIFA here. When I saw the refs in Red tops my first thought was to yell at FIFA through the TV.

terriblehuman|
June 14, 2014 at 1:20 pm |

Apparently, Spain’s red doesn’t sufficiently contrast with Netherland’s blue (in FIFA’s eyes, not mine), and a clash between ref jerseys and player jersey is considered less problematic.

Either way, really dumb.

LarryB|
June 14, 2014 at 1:36 pm |

Always fascinated and impressed by the GUD guys. Now reading about the Staleys or Bears red jerseys was fun.

Also thanks to George for the colorizations. I was happy to see those today. Especially the Brown one or college football.

Michael Emody|
June 14, 2014 at 3:59 pm |

Btw, the numbers on the 64 Phillies jerseys were chain stitched. There’s plenty of photo’s of the backs of players showing the numbers from the 50’s – I believe Life’s sports photos cover a Phillies game.

The Cubs should ditch the current two grey road versions and wear these the rest of the year.

Richard|
June 14, 2014 at 4:36 pm |

I think since Phil already noted the flags of Ghana, Cameroon, Canada, some World Cup team flags and the Atlanta Braves flag desecration jersey in today’s ticker, perhaps it might be acceptable to mention today 14 June 2014 is our national Flag Day, and it coincides with the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s writing of the “Star-Spangled Banner”.

Bill, GUD should list the Navy blue with orange stripes as well as the red. You seem to be forgetting the 1920 Staleys had an official team photo, which obviously was the source of Merv Cornings drawing of George Halas. From sources I read, A.E. Staley spent big money to field a football team that was Halas inspired. George Halas played college, in the Rose bowl, semipro football and played for the New York Yankees baseball team. I’m sure standardizing the team uniform was a priority to Halas. So if Halas and company took over a team that had red jerseys from earlier in 1919, it’s safe to say navy blue and orange became the standard in 1920.

Ryan da Bearfan|
June 15, 2014 at 3:07 pm |

One more thing Bill, George Halas was meticulous with details when being interviewed about his life and the Bears. The 50th anniversary book was published when Halas was alive, so the artwork must of been fine to him. I guess a good source to look over is Halas by Halas, which I haven’t got a copy for myself yet to look over.

Zack|
June 15, 2014 at 3:14 pm |

Anyone notice that Switzerland played in red today vs Ecudore who went with royal?
Both shades where lighter than what the Spain red and Holland blue was but isn’t this the same issue?
I’m assuming that since Switzerland wore white shorts it was aloud which bring me to my point earlier that why couldn’t Holland being the away team wear white shorts and socks to counter the all red of Spain
Stupid FIFA…